


For All My Former Sins

by gundamoocow



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Imprisonment, Injury, M/M, Other, Power Imbalance, Touch-Starved, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:28:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22116394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gundamoocow/pseuds/gundamoocow
Summary: Chewed up and spat out by the Force, Ben Solo seeks atonement.Armitage Hux just wants to live.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 67
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, it's time for me to throw my post-TROS "everything is the same, but Hux and Kylo aka Ben are still alive" fic into the mix.
> 
> FAIR WARNING: While the primary ship is kylux, the boys will be interacting sexually with other characters. There will be elements of sexual slavery in this story. Specific tags will be added when subsequent chapters are posted.

Hux jolts awake. He opens his eyes and tries to gasp for air, but none comes. His surroundings are blurry and hued in blue, and he suddenly realises that he’s drowning. Instinctively, he kicks his legs and flails his arms until his fingers scrape something smooth and solid, and it dawns on him that he’s in a bacta tank.

Something is not right, because he’s in a bacta tank and he has no air. He bangs on the glass with all his strength, faintly aware of movement behind it. Moments later, there is a scraping sound above him and he’s being pulled up by an arm. He kicks again, trying to swim up. When he breaks the surface, he still can’t breathe, but grabs whoever is pulling him up with all the energy he can muster while his lungs burn.

“I’m so sorry, sir!” a familiar voice says as Hux is hauled out of the tank.

Hux has no idea who it is, not yet.

“Just a moment--”

Something is unclipped from the back of Hux’s head, and then a long foreign object is pulled from his throat. When it’s free, Hux gags and coughs, wheezing and hacking. When he can finally breathe normally, he tries to rub the blurriness from his eyes.

It’s not supposed to happen like this; there should be a medical droid and a winch to lift him out of the tank. The feeding and breathing tubes should be removed delicately, and certainly the air supply should not be switched off. He should be resting comfortably on a gurney, not keeled over on his hands and knees on the cold, hard floor.

Everything hurts, especially the bottom of his sternum. He runs a hand over it, feeling scarred flesh.

Hux needs to get his wits about him, and fast. His eyes are still blurry, but he can tell from the dark walls and strips of white light that he’s in a First Order ship of some kind.

“Report,” Hux says to whoever is here helping him. His voice is ragged, almost a hiss. That tube must have done a number on him.

“Sir, it’s Dopheld Mitaka. Are-- are you all right?”

Mitaka! Hux has never felt so relieved. “I’ve had better days, clearly,” he says hoarsely. He can make out Mitaka’s figure -- dark uniform and pale face -- but not much more than that.

“Can-- can you see?”

“Not well.” He’s also cold. “Do you have a blanket?”

“Oh! Yes, sir. One moment.”

Mitaka scurries off and then returns with something thin and scratchy, but at least Hux has something to wrap himself with. He pulls the blanket over his shoulders and sits up, leaning against a wall for support. There are many questions Hux wants to ask, but after nearly dying once, he needs to be strategic.

“What’s our status?”

He can almost feel Mitaka wringing his hands and tensing up, which means it’s bad.

“We’ve been defeated, sir.”

Hux balks. “What?”

“I don’t know how it happened exactly, sir,” Mitaka says, “but from the radio chatter, it seems that the Resistance turned up on Exegol, and so did over a thousand other ships. I don’t know where they came from.”

Organa must have rounded them up somehow. Hux had spent the previous year ensuring compliance of systems newly under the First Order’s control. If any of them had a navy, Hux would have known about it. Perhaps the Resistance has their own version of Exegol somewhere.

Mitaka continued. “The Allegiant fleet and the Sith fleet are both lost.”

“And the _Steadfast_?” Hux asks, thankful that he’s still too hoarse for his voice to waver.

“Destroyed. High command is gone.”

Well. In Hux’s current circumstances, that is an advantage. The less anyone knows of his betrayal, the better. “And Ren?”

“No one has heard from him.”

Pryde and Ren suffering total defeats immediately after getting rid of Hux is poetic, truly. “I assume that whatever is left of Palpatine is gone, too.”

“I don’t know,” Mitaka says. “There have been no orders from anyone.”

In his previous life, Hux would have seized this opportunity to quickly consolidate control over whatever First Order factions remain. Now, there’s no point. No matter what he does, whatever army he manages to raise, whatever technology he creates, some idiot Force user is going to walk in and ruin it all. Ren had been easily manipulated by Snoke, and Palpatine returned from the dead to do the same. At any moment, some child from a shithole planet can suddenly develop Force abilities and destroy an entire military complex with a handful of accomplices.

Hux could very well do with a career change, one which will not draw the attention of any Jedi or Sith or any other mystically powerful individuals, and where he will not have to answer to anybody of his father’s ilk. He could be an Outer Rim warlord, perhaps, or he could change his name, colour his hair, and become a weapons engineering consultant. Both of those things are within his skillset.

“Right,” Hux says, once the course of action is clear. He gets to his feet, gripping on a rail for support. “What are our present coordinates? We should--”

The world around him spins and goes black.

When Hux comes to, Mitaka is crouching over him, holding a datapad and something else. “What happened?” Hux asks.

“You passed out, sir. I’m trying to do a scan, but I’ll be honest. I don’t know how any of this works.”

Hux doesn’t have any energy to fight whatever Mitaka is doing, so he lies there and lets it happen.

“There’s nothing seriously wrong, I think,” Mitaka says after a while. “Low blood pressure and dehydration. Your blood sugar is low, too.”

“And my eyes?”

“Oh,” Mitaka says. “You hit the floor pretty hard when. You know.”

“The bacta should have taken care of that," Hux says with confidence.

"Ah. There was a problem with that. The--"

A proximity alarm sounds, blaring through the ship.

"Oh, no."

"Let the pilot handle it," Hux says, annoyed.

"There is no pilot, sir. Or, there was, but." Hux hears Mitaka swallow. "I had to get you out myself. You understand, right?" he says, pleading.

"Help me up," Hux says.

Mitaka crouches down enough for Hux to get a grip on him. With one arm around Mitaka's shoulder and the other holding the blanket around himself, Hux manages to stumble to the cockpit. He squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them wide, trying to clear the blurriness. It doesn't really help, but he's at least able to recognise enough of his surroundings to figure out that they're in Ren's command shuttle.

"Prep the hyperdrive," Hux commands as soon as he slumps into one of the seats. "There, on the nav computer. Choose somewhere remote. Let the autopilot do the rest."

"The hyperdrive is down," Mitaka replies, distressed. "We're adrift, sir."

"And I take it the Resistance is closing in." Hux doesn't wait for Mitaka to reply before issuing his next order. "Ping them," Hux says. "I want to speak to the commanding officer."

"Right away, sir."

Moments later, the alarm is silenced and Mitaka hands a comm to Hux.

Hux doesn't want to do this, but he’s fucking _alive_ and he wants to _stay_ alive, so he swallows his pride and says, "Please don't shoot. We surrender. This is--" Hux stops. It could be very dangerous to identify himself. "We're First Order defectors."

The voice on the other end laughs. "You and everyone else trying to save their skins."

"Please!" Hux grits his teeth, hating to beg. "Our ship is disabled! We can't fight you."

"Tell that to my sister and her kids from Hosnian Prime."

A blast rocks the ship, throwing Hux forward onto the console. "I'm the First Order spy who provided the information that led to your victory!" Hux yells into the comm, desperate. "Poe Dameron can verify! I can provide valuable intelligence if you take us alive."

There is no response. In the silence, Hux wonders how pathetic Mitaka must think he is now.

"I don't have any love for the Resistance," he says quietly, with the comm’s microphone covered. "You must know that."

"I do, sir," Mitaka replies.

"Kylo Ren was tearing apart everything I'd built. He had to be stopped."

"So it's true, then," Mitaka says. "It really was you."

Hux nods. Mitaka must regret having saved him now.

"I'll see to it that you are spared, if I can help it."

"I believed in you, sir. For what it's worth."

The comm crackles as a new transmission arrives. "Hugs? Is that you?"

Hux closes his eyes, trying to convince himself that this will be worth it. "Yes, it's me."

"Oh, boy. Someone's gonna bring you in. Sit tight."

Relief washes over Hux, and he hears Mitaka sigh next to him.

"Are there any spare clothes?" Hux asks.

"I don't know, sir."

"Ren has a small berth on this shuttle. There might be some spare clothing there."

Mitaka leaves and returns with a pile of clothing. Hux's vision seems to be getting better by the minute, thankfully. He sifts through the clothing, hoping to find an officer's uniform, but they are just Ren's things. Begrudgingly, he picks up a pair of leggings and slips them on. He has no underthings, and he'd rather die than wear Ren's, so he'll have to live with his bits dangling freely in the too-big leggings. All of the available tops will be comically large on him, so he chooses what looks like a standard-issue training singlet.

"Are there any boots?" Hux asks.

"I looked," Mitaka says. "There are only the pilot's."

"The pilot's? Oh. Well, let's have them."

He looks over to Mitaka, realising only then that there's a body lying on the floor beside him. He crouches down and struggles to pull the boots free. It occurs to Hux that he could take the pilot's uniform, but the ship suddenly shudders. They're getting pulled in by a tractor beam for sure, meaning there's no time.

Mitaka gets the boots free just as the shuttle settles onto something solid. Hux can just about make out the hangar through the windscreen. It's not very big.

"Quickly," Hux says. He doesn't want to be barefoot when the Resistance takes him. It's already shameful enough that he's wearing Ren's clothes.

Just as he gets the second boot on, the shuttle ramp opens.

"Freeze!" a voice commands, not Dameron's. "Put your hands up."

Hux is still sitting in the pilot's seat. If he stands too quickly he might fall over. Mitaka gets to his feet right away. Hux raises his hands, but doesn't get up.

"On your feet! Stand up and turn around slow."

He can do this. He doesn't need the bloody Resistance to help him walk, for kriff's sake. Slowly, he gets up on shaky legs. The boots are too big.

"Yeah, it's him," one of the figures says to someone not in Hux’s field of view. "There's another guy here, too. Let's go, both of you."

Hux doesn't need good vision to know that there's a blaster pointed at him. He shuffles along in the too-big boots, his sockless feet sticking to the inner soles. From there, things move quickly. He's cuffed and a black bag is thrown over his head. Strong arms drag him along until he's thrown onto the floor. Someone kicks him in the ribs, hard, and he's left wheezing as a door slams shut.

"Hello?" he calls out. "Mitaka?"

No one responds. Hux has little energy to do anything but shiver on the floor, lying curled up with his wrists bound tightly behind him.

It's been a long time since he's been this low.

Hours pass. Hux dozes, drifting in and out of sleep. Eventually, he feels the tell-tale turbulence of atmospheric re-entry. He's close to either salvation or doom. Probably doom.

The door opens.

"This is your stop."

Hux doesn't know if it's the person who kicked him before or not, but he braces himself anyway. All that happens is that he's lifted to his feet. He scrambles to keep up as he's dragged away.

Outside of the ship, the air is pleasantly warm and there are birds chirping. The murmuring around him tells Hux the quite a few people are watching him disembark the vessel that captured him. He could be on his way to his execution, a public spectacle to satisfy his enemies. It's what he would have done if the tables were turned. In fact, he had attempted that exact scenario with the traitor and the other Resistance rat, who are both probably here.

Hux’s heart thumps in his chest. He doesn't want to die, even pathetic and defeated as he is. Brendol is dead. So is Pryde, and so is Ren. Hux is the last man standing, and he will _not_ let this be the end of him.

No one forces Hux to his knees, ready to shoot him as soon as they’re given the command. Instead, they hoist him up by the arms and drag him away. He can feel the crumbly texture of real dirt under his boots. Wherever he is, it's not the center of a civilised world.

The hands let go of him and he collapses, unable to stay upright.

"Whoa there." It’s Dameron.

Someone yanks off the bag from Hux’s head, and bright light immediately assaults his eyes. His head throbs.

"It really is you, Hugs."

Despite the overly bright light, Hux can see. The blurring is almost gone, and Dameron looks mighty pleased with himself, towering over Hux.

"You look like shit," Dameron says, nudging Hux with his boot.

Hux doesn't know what to say to that. He hasn’t seen himself in a mirror since before the bacta tank, so Dameron is probably right.

"A lot of people out there want you dead, Starkiller."

Hux looks around. He's in a tent of some kind. There's only cloth between himself and the people who are out for his blood.

Dameron crosses his arms. "Start talking."

"I can give you coordinates of the last known positions of every ship," Hux spits.

"Would've been useful two days ago. Keep going."

Hux swallows. "I have high level access codes. Any system you want, I can get you in."

"Don't you need those little cylinder thingies? You don't look like you have those anymore."

Hux blinks and looks down at himself, at his baggy leggings and oversized tank top. He has no idea where his uniform is nor whether he still has any clearance for anything. What can _he_ uniquely do? Something he needs to be alive for.

"Children!" he almost shouts when the idea comes to him. "There are children on the star destroyers. Not the Sith fleet, but First Order. If you shoot them down, they die."

This gives Dameron pause.

"Ask FN-2187. Stormtroopers are programmed from birth, and I'm the one in the conditioning videos. They know me. I can make them lay down their arms. Hell, I can reprogram them if you want a real army."

"Reprogram them?" Dameron repeats, incredulous for some reason. "No, no. Getting them to stop fighting is enough. Okay, Hugs, you get to stay alive for a while."

Hux sighs with relief. He managed to survive one execution. He’s not sure that he can survive another.

"Rose? You got the stuff I asked for?"

The Resistance vermin that Hux had tried to execute walks right into the tent, smiling brightly. She's holding a collar.

"This feels good," she says as she fastens it around his neck.

"This place isn't built to house prisoners," Dameron explains. "If you try to run or try anything funny… Rose?"

Rose presses a button on a small hand-held controller and suddenly Hux is in excruciating pain as an electric current surges through his neck.

"Get the picture?" Rose says.

Hux nods from the floor. He's sprawled there, muscles curled in tension, cramping. There's something wet and warm around this groin, and he realises with mortification that he pissed himself.

"I understand," he croaks. "You won't have any trouble from me."

"How about your friend?"

"Mitaka? He's just an officer following orders. He saved my life. Please don't kill him."

"I don't think that will endear him to anyone here," Dameron says. "Rose, can you get Hugs here cleaned up? I'll find him something to wear that doesn't stink."

With that, Dameron leaves. Rose looks down at Hux, frowning. "Get up," she says.

Hux tries. His arms and legs gradually unseize. With his arms still bound behind him, getting to his feet is a struggle. He hasn't eaten in days, and he can feel how weak his body is because of it. When he makes it up, he's swaying on his feet, barely standing.

Rose walks behind him and unlocks the binders. They drop off and land on the ground with a thud.

"Walk. Out and to the right."

He stumbles along, keeping his eyes on the ground to avoid people's stares. He walks until he's told to stop.

"Here are the showers," Rose says.

Hux looks up to see some makeshift compartments with water tanks mounted above them.

"These are showers?" Hux asks.

"Solar showers," Rose explains, not really answering Hux's question.

He shrugs and enters a cubicle, pulling the curtain closed behind him, grateful for the unexpected privacy. He peels his -- Ren's -- clothing off and struggles with the boots until he's finally naked. Only the collar remains. Beneath his bare feet is a durasteel sheet with a drain. Above him is a tap. He quickly pieces together how this works. It's a primitive system, but it's an _actual water shower_ and Hux feels almost excited to use it. He reaches up to open the tap, and a spray of cool water rains onto him, feeling like heaven. He tilts his head up and opens his mouth, gulping down whatever water he can.

"Save some water for the rest of us!" Rose calls out.

Hux springs into action. There's liquid soap in a dispenser. Hux squirts out a handful and rubs it in his hair until it foams, and then the rest of his body -- his arms and legs, over the gnarly scar on his torso, his armpits, between his legs, between his toes. He quickly rinses off, then turns off the tap.

He's wet. He's not sure what to do about it until a towel is thrust towards him through the curtain.

"Thank you," he mumbles. They could have beaten him into a bloody pulp by now, easily, but instead, the member of the Resistance who quite possibly hates him the most is playing at being a bath attendant for him at some fancy spa on Canto Bight. A week ago, Hux would have laughed at anyone who predicted such a future. Now, he’s grateful for it.

Once he's dry, he wraps the towel around his waist and opens the curtain.

Both Dameron and Rose are there now. Dameron hands Hux a pile of clothing.

"See if this fits," he says.

"Thank you," Hux mumbles again.

"Your friend said you got shot for treason," Dameron says.

"My reward for doing the right thing," Hux says dryly as he steps into a pair of boxer shorts. He prefers briefs, but he's not in a position to bargain.

"I guess you two were lucky. Finn and Jannah blew the whole command deck, then your ship went point-first into Exegol." Dameron makes a diving gesture with his hand and whistles, finishing off with a horrid rumbling sound. "Whole thing blew. No survivors."

How this man came to a position of power and led the Resistance to victory is one of the grand mysteries of the universe. At least Ren had the Force.

Hux dresses the rest of the way, putting on a pair of light brown trousers and a thin off-white button-up shirt. Dameron brought him socks, but no shoes.

"Do you have any shoes?" Hux asks.

"Don't you have boots?" asks Dameron.

"They're not mine and they're too big."

"Don't know," he replies.

There's no other choice, then. Hux steps into the boots.

Remarkably, he feels refreshed and strengthened, not simply clinging to vestiges of life.

"Let's get you some food, since you're apparently no good to us dead," Dameron says.

Hux follows him and Rose through the camp. This time, Hux allows himself the occasional glance up. He sees bunks in tents, consoles all over the place. People run to and fro, occupied with some task or other. He expects to be accosted by Organa at some point. Hopefully she's too busy with real work.

There's a mess hall in a big open space covered by a tent roof. Hux is nudged into a queue for food. It's not so different from being on a star destroyer, except the carefully balanced First Order meals are substituted with some local fare. There's a soup, some kind of bread roll, chunks of what Hux thinks is meat in a sauce, and some fresh fruit. Hux has no idea when his next meal will come, so he loads up his tray.

Rose sits at a table at the edge of the hall, so Hux follows her and sits opposite.

"For the record," she says, glaring at Hux, "I wanted to toss you out of an airlock."

Hux wants to snap back at her, to tell her the feeling is mutual, but Rose has the remote to his shock collar in her pocket, so he scowls and takes a spoonful of soup.

It's delicious.

After the first spoon, he shovels the rest into his mouth, then gives up on the spoon altogether and drinks directly from the bowl.

"Wow, I'll send your compliments to the chef," says Dameron as he takes a seat.

Hux wolfs down the meat and is about to do the same with the bread roll until he sees Dameron dipping it into the sauce. Hux does the same, pausing briefly to savour the rich flavour. The last thing on his tray is fruit. Hux hasn't had fresh fruit since Starkiller, and then it was just a few wild snowberries he picked. The fruit now in front of him is green with small black seeds. It's tart, but juicy, and Hux eats it all in less than a minute.

When his tray is empty, Hux looks up.

"Did they not feed you up there in the First Order?" Dameron asks.

"The food was perfectly nutritionally balanced," Hux retorts, then changes the subject. "Where's Mitaka?"

"He's with Finn, corroborating your story," Rose replies.

"Oh."

"So here's the plan," Dameron says, once he finishes his own meal. "We found an undamaged and operational star destroyer away from the main fleet. We're gonna fly you up there, and if you can work your magic, we won't use you as target practice. How's that sound?"

Hux doesn't have a choice. "When do we leave?"

"They don't look like they're going anywhere, probably because they've got no orders. I'm at the end of my shift, so we'll go out first thing tomorrow."

So be it. Hux doesn't think he can last any longer, not without stims. "May I sleep?"

"Sure," Dameron says, grinning. "Rose and I'll show you to your suite."

Both Dameron and Rose pick up their trays, so Hux follows suit. They deposit them at a washing station, then continue on their way.

"Like I said before, this place wasn't designed to have prisoners," Dameron says, "so we cleared out a storage closet, just for you."

They come to a stop in front of a durasteel container. Rose unlocks it. Inside, there are rows of smaller compartments. Hux doesn't know what they're keeping here, but the whole container looks like it can be picked up and lifted by a cargo transport. They open one and show Hux inside.

"You've got everything here," Dameron says. "Bedroll, ensuite bucket, and a light." He winks. "Sweet dreams."

"Don't even think about breaking out," Rose adds. "That collar will go off the second you leave the base."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Hux says, rolling his eyes.

As soon as he steps in, they slam the door behind him and lock it. The space is the size of a detention cell. He can lie in it, just, and he can stand upright, but that's it.

After a minute of standing in the middle of the room, if one could even call it that, it hits Hux that he's alone, and importantly, alive. Things could have gone much, much worse. He switches off the light and drops to the floor to remove the dead pilot's boots, then crawls into the bedroll. It's large and could possibly fit two people, so Hux stretches out. He means to plot out a strategy to reign in the star destroyer, but seconds after his head hits the bedroll, he's asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific warnings for this chapter: suicide ideation and non-graphic description of medical procedures.

Kylo Ren is dead.

Kylo Ren is dead, and Ben Solo is one with the Force.

Its thrum is ever-present, flowing through life itself and binding the universe together. It flows through Ben, too. Where it once waged war inside him like turbulent waves crashing against unforgiving stone, it’s now calm and peaceful, like a leaf idly floating down a gentle stream. There is no pain, no conflict. Just an endless flow.

 _Wait_.

If Ben can feel the Force flowing through him, then he still exists as an entity. He is not one with the Force, after all. As soon as he realises this, he senses his corporeal form returning. Not completely, like a true living thing, but faint, comprised only of the Force itself.

He's a ghost.

"Ben."

The voice echoes through him. It's the same voice he heard on Endor, when he was soaking wet in the rain while fighting Rey.

It’s Leia.

His searches for her, yearning, frantic. If she's here, then she's gone from the living world, just as he is. He sends himself outward, desperate to find her. Like a beacon in a fog, he senses her and homes in directly, nothing stopping him. Not anymore.

Like him, she's faint, almost translucent, but she's unmistakably herself, her presence strong. She's wearing white, like in the old holos.

"Mommy," he blurts, collapsing to his knees. He grabs for her, surprised that she's solid as he wraps his arms around her and buries his face against her belly. He’s a child again, reunited with his mother after the terror of being lost and alone.

“Ben,” she says again, softly, while she strokes his hair. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’m sorry,” he sobs. For Han. For everything.

“I’m sorry, too,” she says.

“You never gave up on me. I knew. I knew, but--” He couldn’t believe it. _Kylo Ren_ could never believe it. It would have destroyed him. It _did_ destroy him.

“And I never will.”

Ben feels a great lurch in the Force. He looks up at his mother’s face, panicked.

“I wanted to see you,” she says, her expression pained. “I took you with me, but you have to go back.”

Back? “No!” he shouts, not at Leia but at the Force pressing him, pushing him. “That world isn’t for me anymore!”

“Follow your heart, Ben.” She’s fading now, or perhaps Ben is. “There’s good in you. Make amends and show them. They’ll see it, too.”

“Wait--” he calls, but it’s too late. He’s being dragged backwards. The Force is getting rid of him, purging him like he’s an invader that needs to be flushed out. _Please_ , he wants to beg, but he can’t. He has no form anymore, no mouth or anything else. There’s only a weight growing within him, heavier and heavier until he can’t hold what’s left of himself up. He drops, and everything goes dark.

***

The first thing Ben senses when consciousness gradually returns to him is that he's trapped. There's a heavy weight holding him down and his mind feels like it's imprisoned in a cramped padded cell. It takes a monumental effort to reach out with the Force to investigate his surroundings, only for him to recoil. There's death and destruction all around him.

Something terrible happened here.

A prickle of cold touches Ben’s face, and only then he realises he that he _has_ a face, which means he has a body, which means--

He has a body. Which means he has to breathe. He gasps, wheezing as he sucks air into his lungs. The air is horrible, full of smoke and ash and burning metal. With his next wheezing breath comes sharp pain, starting from his back and travelling all around his side. It hurts. His body is broken, and it hurts. Pain can feed the power of the dark side, but the thought of using it nauseates him now.

After Ben’s lungs get over their initial shock, they settle into short, shallow breaths. He takes a survey of what else is broken. First, he moves his fingertips, checking if he can feel anything at all. They scrape whatever is under him, which feels like stone covered in dust and small pieces of debris. His arms feel tired and sore, but uninjured. His legs--

Pain shoots up his right leg as soon as he tries to flex a muscle. His left leg he can't feel at all, has no idea if it's obeying his commands. It comes back to him now: falling, his spine and ribs cracking when he hit a rock, then mustering barely enough Force to stop himself from hitting the ground. _Snoke taught you well_. How ironic.

Ben knows where he is now. He only has to open his eyes for the nightmare to become his reality.

Above him, he sees open sky. It's red and hazy from flames and smoke. No ships hang above him, but on the ground, he senses the dead and dying. Whoever survived is long gone. The Sith fleet is gone. Palpatine is gone. Rey is-- not here, but alive somewhere, and so are her friends.

There's nothing left for him here. The galaxy didn't want Kylo Ren, and it sure as hell doesn't need Ben Solo.

He closes his eyes again. It's starting to feel cold, and he has nothing; no shelter, no clothes. It'll be over soon. He can wait.

_"Ben, get up."_

Ben's eyes fly open. "Mom?"

He turns his head side to side, looking for the source of the voice, but there's nothing but Palpatine's crumbling crypt.

_"Leave this place, or you'll die."_

A sob wracks through him, sending shooting pain through his ribs and back.

"I can't," he rasps. It's not just physical. He has nowhere to go, no one to go to that will have him. Those bridges are long burned, both figuratively and literally.

Leia doesn’t respond. Ben imagines her silently staring at him with her arms crossed, as if he’s a child again, inventing excuses for why he can’t clean his room. The memory is light and innocent, though even then, an undercurrent of darkness churned inside him.

He stares up at the sky again. This planet, this whole system, is a seat of darkness. It doesn’t feel as powerful as it did the first time Ben -- no, _Kylo_ \-- was here. Ben hopes that means Rey destroyed Palpatine for good. The Sith followers are gone, too. There’s no trace of them, as if they were no more than an illusion. All of it was an illusion, in the end: the power of the dark side, the First Order, and even Snoke. Ben had fallen for it until he could no longer be Ben and had to be Kylo instead.

An explosion in the distance rocks the ground beneath him. His heart rate shoots up, even though he plans to die here. Why should he fear for his physical safety? Getting crushed will be a quick death. He’s ready for it.

Another explosion, this time a lot closer, sends several large rocks tumbling from above. Ben scrambles to get out of the way, using the Force to boost his movement when his left leg refuses to cooperate. His heart is pounding now, adrenaline surging through him. The spot where he had been lying is covered with scattered debris, some pieces as large as his head. He could have died there. He _should_ have died there, but he didn’t. He’s alive, and he’s relieved to be alive.

It’s a sign. Maybe his mother is right; he should leave this place.

He drags himself to the platform that will take him back up to ground level, if it’s still working. There’s something wrong with his spine, not just his leg. He climbed out of the pit, somehow, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to do something like that again. Miraculously, the platform lift still works. Ben can hear it lowering, then crawls onto it, scraping his right knee. His dragging left leg is being rubbed raw, but he can’t feel it at all.

The levitating fortress is still in place, being held up by something that must long predate Palpatine. The continuously rumbling ground makes Ben irrationally fearful of the whole structure falling on him. Minutes ago, he hoped for exactly that kind of quick end, but now, a primal urge to survive pushes him forward until his arms finally give way and he collapses face-down on the ground. He cranes his neck up. The clearing ahead is objectively close by, but it’s light years away, as far as his body is concerned.

He drops his head onto his forearms. Neither leg is really working now. Sharp pains are shooting up his right leg, as if his nerves are being electrocuted directly. His ribcage feels like it’s being crushed. Even Kylo wouldn’t be able to draw power from this kind of all-consuming pain.

_“You’re so close, Ben.”_

Ben wants to tell her sorry again. Not for what Kylo did, but what Ben is doing right now: giving up.

Out of nowhere, he feels a pull. Unmistakeably, it’s the Force, but it’s nothing like being pushed and thrown by Snoke and Palpatine. This time, it feels like a gentle uplift.

“Why are you helping me?” Ben asks, tears streaming down his face.

_“You ask a lot of stupid questions.”_

Ben’s ribs scream in protest as he lets out a single involuntary chuckle, which turns into a painful hacking cough, but the light pull of the Force remains. He drags himself by his exhausted arms, little by little, until he finally emerges from beneath the fortress. When he’s completely clear of it, he kisses the ground, unable to inhale deeply enough to blow the dirt and dust from his lips afterwards. He lies prone and counts to a minute in his head before forcing himself to look ahead.

The TIE fighter.

It’s still there and it’s still in one piece. There’s burning wreckage all around, pieces of star destroyers and other ships, but the area around the TIE is clear, as if protected by a shield. It’s so, so close. Ben closes his eyes and draws up all energy he has left for this final sprint to safety. The Force is with him. He takes its outreached hand and uses it to prop himself up, supporting his spine as best as he can as he hobbles towards the fighter and pulls himself into it.

He grits his teeth as he finally gets into the seat. The shooting pain is still there. He looks down at himself, at his scraped up, dirty skin. There should be a standard issue first aid kit in here. Ben fumbles at a compartment until it opens, empty. Those defected troopers must have cleaned out all the supplies back on Endor. He needs medical treatment. Briefly, he entertains the idea of finding a remaining First Order ship and masquerading as Kylo Ren, if only to use the med bay, but he can’t face that.

Really, he wants someone to tell him where to go.

“Mom?” he calls out, his voice small.

“Now _you want my opinion?”_

He wants to snap at her for cruelly joking with him at a time like this, but he’s so happy to hear her voice in his head that he can’t bring himself to argue.

“They won’t want me,” he says, thinking of his mother’s associates in the Resistance. “But I--” He looks down at himself again, at his broken body. “I need help.”

 _“The Resistance base is on Ajan Kloss. They’ll help you, if you let them.”_ she says. _“There’s also a medical station near the Vardoss sector. You know the one.”_

Ben does. It’s heavily used by smugglers. No questions asked, if you have the credits. Ben doesn’t have the credits, but he has the Force and he has a ship.

“I know what you want me to do, but I can’t do it,” he says, the ache of guilt hurting worse than the pain in his leg.

_“Get yourself fixed up, then worry about the rest. Your destiny is in your own hands.”_

That’s a goal he can live with. He powers on the fighter and takes off, using the Force to operate the foot pedals. From above, he can see wreckage as far as the hazy horizon. He doesn’t stick around to survey for any active ships in the air. When he’s clear of Exegol’s maelstrom, he enters the coordinates for the medical station and sets an alert for his impending arrival, then promptly passes out just after he enters lightspeed.

When he regains consciousness, the ship is rattling and a proximity alarm is blaring. The station is up ahead and he hastily answers the hail he’s receiving.

“Another First Order grunt running for help?” a voice jeers on the other end.

“No,” Ben objects. Kylo Ren was no grunt, though Ben is undeniably running for help. “I, uh, stole this ship.”

“Good for you.”

“Can I land?” he asks. “I need medical treatment. Urgent,” he adds.

“Can you pay?”

“You can have the ship.” He’ll worry about the next step when he gets to it. If he gets to it.

“Wow, buddy, you must be pretty fucked up.”

“Yeah. Bring a stretcher.”

When he lands, Ben finds that he can’t move either leg at all, or anything much below the waist. Two strong Pantorans have to pull him out of the cockpit. They aren’t too careful when they dump him onto a stretcher, but Ben figures that whatever they do won’t be worse than anything that had happened to him so far.

He’s taken down a series of corridors until he enters a room with a worn-looking medical droid. The Pantorans leave him without a word.

Ben lies patiently while the droid scans him.

“Your injuries are as follows,” the droid says mechanically. “Punctured right lung. Seven broken ribs. Broken vertebrae T6 to T12. Severed spinal nerves. Extensive tissue damage around the spine. Punctured lung. Broken left tibia. Scrapes and abrasions. High risk of sepsis. Optimal treatment: total bacta immersion. You do not have enough credits for total bacta immersion.”

“What?” Ben objects. “But my ship is worth--”

“Due to First Order hyperlane blockades, bacta treatment is at a premium. You do not have enough credits for total--”

“The First Order is dead!” Ben hisses, unable to muster enough force from his lungs to truly yell.

“Maybe so. However, bacta shipments have not resumed.”

“Fine. Okay. What else can you do?”

“Next optimal treatment: partial bacta immersion. You do not have enough credits for partial bacta immersion.”

Ben scrunches his eyes shut in frustration. He wants to send this droid flying against the wall until it smashes into smithereens. “Just tell me what I can afford.”

“Optimal treatment within your available funds: cybernetic reconstruction of the spinal column and spinal cord. Manual bone setting and low-concentration bacta application. Anaesthesia.”

“Do that,” Ben orders.

“Understood.”

The droid places a mask over Ben’s face and injects him with something, and he sees no more.

Ben wakes up to the sound of machines beeping around him. He’s wearing a light-coloured gown and a thin blanket is draped over him, though his bare feet are sticking out. One foot is in a cast. There’s no pain. A medical droid is in the room with him, standing at the end of his bed. The same droid that saw him earlier, in fact.

“I will now test your nerve responses. Tell me what you feel.”

The droid blows cool air on his toes, tickling him. “Cold,” Ben says, then, “Hot,” when the air changes temperature. The droid then pricks his toes until Ben twitches and says, “Ow,” immediately ashamed that he uttered such a thing over such a minor sensation.

“Attempt to move your toes,” the droid says.

Ben does, happy to see and feel that they are moving.

“Prognosis: adequate. Painless walking should be achievable after several months of physiotherapy. This facility does not provide physiotherapy. Cast removal is recommended after six standard weeks. Do not bear weight on the left leg for two weeks. Your ribs will heal in six standard weeks. Do not undergo strenuous exercise durinng this time. Would you like to purchase a mobility aid?”

Flabbergasted, Ben asks what’s available.

“Optimal mobility aid: durafiber exoskeleton. You do not have enough credits for a durafiber exoskeleton. Next optimal--”

“Shut up! Just give me a fucking crutch or something.”

“Understood.”

“How long can I stay here?” Ben hopes that it’s at least for the night.

“You must vacate this room in one standard hour. Lodging facilities are available at an additional cost.”

“Can I afford them?”

“You can afford a private suite for twenty-three minutes. You can afford a private room for thirty-five hours and seven minutes. You can afford a bed in a shared dormitory for approximately four nights.”

This is endlessly frustrating. In other circumstances, this droid would have been blown into hundreds of pieces by now and scattered throughout the room. Ben needs to find another human, or at least a humanoid, so he can manipulate them into providing him with free lodgings and other resources.

“Leave me,” Ben says.

Thankfully, the droid buzzes off, and Ben is left on his own. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, relieved that he can do this without pain. He tries flexing his muscles in order from head to toe, surveying how they respond. There isn’t much feeling in his mid-back, possibly because the local anaesthetic hasn’t worn off yet.

Cautiously, Ben pushes himself up to a seated position. There’s still no pain, so he carefully swings his legs off the side of the bed and tries to stand, using the Force to take most of his weight. Gradually, he lets go with the Force, though he keeps his weight on his right leg to avoid standing on his casted left foot. So far, so good. He hobbles forwards. The movement feels natural, which hopefully means that the new cybernetic portion of his spine is working.

Ben decides to skip waiting for a crutch, and instead opens the door, limping out in bare feet and wearing nothing but his medical gown. Droids whir to and fro in the corridor, none paying any attention to him, so he keeps limping until he reaches what looks like a reception area.

“I need clothes,” he says to the droid stationed there. Still no humans in sight.

“Personal effects are stored in the level three holding area. Your compartment code is--”

“I came with nothing,” Ben snarls. “I need fresh clothes delivered here.”

“Delivery service is unavailable,” the droid drones. “A market is located on level eight.”

“Are you telling me that I have to go out like this?”

“Delivery service is unavai--”

Ben slams his fist against the reception desk and storms off in the direction of the exit, trying to look as menacing as he can while limping around in an ugly hospital gown that barely drops below his mid-thighs. He quickly loses steam when he realises that this entire place is a maze, and it takes real effort to find his way out. It feels like a sad, pathetic struggle compared to dragging himself off of Exegol while on death’s door.

When he finally finds a turbolift, he bashes the call button. The lift arrives, empty, and Ben walks in and bashes the level eight button, too.

When the door opens into the shopping area, Ben is taken aback at how run down everything is. He’s been here before, as a child, when it had felt like some wild adventure in the exciting life of a smuggler. The real truth of it is apparent: the merchants here are struggling, selling used parts and cheap food from rusty stalls. The patrons are poor and sick, shambling around the same way Ben is.

He finds a place selling well-worn clothing. As he browses through it, he finds a tunic with a blaster hole in it. A brief vision of a light-haired woman dropping on the ground comes to Ben, unbidden, and he understands now that these are the clothes of dead former patients who had no loved ones to come and collect their belongings. Everything else here is like that, too. Jewelry, trinkets, weapons, toys -- they all belonged to people who died here.

Ben picks up the cleanest-looking tunic and pants he can find. The tunic is black and plain, and the pants are brown and too loose for his liking, but they seem like they’ll fit. There are no boots in his size, so he takes a pair of what look like house slippers. He can’t wear anything on his left foot, anyway. “I’ll take these,” Ben says to the human shopkeeper, showing him the items in his hands. “You will give them to me for no charge.”

“Thank you,” the shopkeeper says, blankly handing Ben a carry bag for the clothes.

He takes it, then walks out of the stall and into a filthy public refresher to change. There’s no mirror, so he can’t investigate his back. He doesn’t think there’s an open wound there, but he leaves the medical gown on under his newly acquired tunic, just in case.

It hasn’t been long since Ben left his hospital bed, but he feels exhausted already. He needs food and he needs to sleep. Food is easy to obtain; he mind tricks a human into giving him some vegetables on a stick and a flask of water. Lodgings are more difficult. There is a hotel of sorts, but the proprietor is again a droid who seems to know exactly how many credits Ben has to his name. He spends the last of those credits on a small, private room. After he rests, he can figure out how to get out of this place.

The room can barely be called a room. It’s more like a capsule, big enough for a double bed only, and no other furniture. There’s a refresher that Ben can get into only by squeezing through the door sideways while ducking. Once inside, he studies himself in the mirror. The first thing that strikes him is that the scar on his face is gone. It wasn’t something that a little bacta would have gotten rid of, and Ben doubts that the medical droids here would have fixed it without charging him for it. So it was something else. The Force? Rey? After living with the scar for over a year, Ben’s face feels naked without it.

 _It was Kylo’s face_ , he corrects himself. Ben did not earn that scar.

He continues to survey himself, lifting up his tunic to get a look at his back, half expecting to see an access panel, like on a cybernetic limb covered in synth skin. However, there is nothing remarkable, only a line of suture glue sealing where they made the incision. The area looks clean, so Ben hopes it _is_ clean and that he’s not going to suffer a fatal infection as soon as he leaves this place.

With nothing else to do, Ben squeezes back out of the refresher and lies on the bed. He will rest and recover his strength, then plot his next steps from there. _Make amends_ , his mother had said. Ben doesn’t know how to do that, not yet, but he’ll figure it out.

Somehow.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/asstromechdroid) and on [tumblr](https://agent-nemesis.tumblr.com/)!


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